Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Essays often fall into two categories: the short and the long. While there is often a virtue in brevity there is more often a vice in prolixity. Writing should avoid repetition and restatement. On the whole, a concise but well thought out response will score higher marks than a sprawling and rambling composition.

More specifically, sentences which are too long, or too complex, often prove to be confusing. On the surface, these kinds of sentence may look impressive, but they often come in for critical censure. In his book, Composition and Punctuation familiarly explained, (1865), Justin Brenan discussed a classic example of the long-winded style of writing.

VERY REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF LONG-WINDEDNESS.

I Thought that
I had exhausted this subject. Yes, I believed that I had furnished the
most glaring examples, but here is one that eclipses them all, and I
give it because you cannot have a better lesson. It is from the History
of England (Cabinet Cyclopaedia), by Sir James Mackintosh, and I copy
from a critique in the Monthly Review of August, 1830 :—

The king, with angry murmurs, turned aside, and
Robert, whose spirit was awakened by this unbrotherly repulse, returned
to the duchy to try his fortune, whither Henry pursued him, and after an
obstinate conflict at Tinchebrai, on the 27th of September, 1106, in
which Robert made the last display of his brilliant qualities as a
commander and a soldier, he was completely routed, and sent prisoner to
England; where his imprisonment appears first to have been mild, but
having yielded to the impulse of nature in attempting to escape from
prison, by the command of his unrelenting brother, his eyes were put
out, and after passing near thirty years of blindness in several
fortresses, he died in 1135, at Cardiff Castle, in Glamorganshire, at
the age of eighty, when all the other chiefs who had shared the glory of
rescuing Jerusalem had been laid low.

The Editor of the Review comments, in strong terms, on the numerous faults of this sentence, and
thus concludes his strictures, "Finally we would ask whether 'all the
other chiefs' had been laid low in the year 1135, or at the age of
eighty, or both? We have seldom seen a worse piece of writing than this,
in whatever way it be contemplated." It, is certainly a reproach to Sir
James, for, supposing him in a hurry when writing, it is to be presumed
that he corrected his own proof sheets, and then he had an opportunity
of seeing this unwieldy sentence in all its deformity. Such an
exhibition is calculated to injure even a respectable author like him,
because it might prejudice the public against his .style, while it would
probably ruin one who was struggling for fame. Now I shall offer no
amendment. Study my directions for correcting long-windedness, and you
can make this crude mass of confused relatives perfectly intelligible,
and pleasing to read, by a proper distribution of the members, and a
little exercise of judgment in connection. This, I say over again, is
the best way to improve your own style.